Frank Stier

Memoir

Mr. Bye

“JOHHN!”

“Sup fool”

“Sup man! Wake the fuck up we’re going to Frisco”

“Ok, but aye, (in a whisper) are your trying to burn snapes man?”

“Aight, you got some?”

“No”

“Godamnit john”

“Weedfuck has some, I’ll hit him up and see if he’s trying to come”

“Do that”

“Wait Frank, why are we going out there?”

“To get fireworks in Chinatown”

“Oh…fo-sho , I’ll call weedfuck right now.”

It was the day before the Fourth of July, and it just rang into my head that we always get intoxicated on the Fourth of July and explosives would be needed to fulfill the night. I always think about my dad around the Fourth of July because it was soon after it in 2004 that he had passed away. I remember being at the Fourth of July parade in Alameda in 2004 when I wondered what my dad was doing but I felt too much resentment and disappointment towards him to make an effort to see him.

Looking back on it I don’t understand if how I dealt with the situation was the appropriate measure to take.

It was a sunny summer day in June, my mom had just dropped me off at my brothers best friends house, which was where my dad had been staying for the last month or two (my dad and his dad were friends). After knocking on the thick oak door several times and getting frustrated about the pain on my knuckles, I let myself inside. The inside of this house was repulsive, there was junk in every corner, the wall lights’ light bulbs were not the proper ones, glancing at the bathroom was foul, and the kitchen was obviously only cleaned once a year. Coming to this house really pissed me off. It was not just the house that pissed me off, but the combination of frustration towards my dad and the filthy house that represented his state of being, pushed me over the top, making me not want to be passive about my anger. I walked inside and after calling for my dad a few times. I found him sitting awake on the couch.

“Why didn’t you answer the door or respond to me calling you?”

“Just chill.” he replied

“Did mom just drop you off?” he asked

“Yea” I said

Then my phone rang and it was my mom. I don’t recall what the subject was, but I do remember is this.

“Is that your mother on the phone?” he asked angrily

“Um, yea, why”

“Give me the phone” he replied

“No, what the fuck”

He tried to take the phone from me. I held a good grip on the phone and he never got it, but he was able to yell into the phone. I let go of the phone and started yelling at him.

“The fuck is wrong with you, you have been drinking haven’t you?”

“That’s why I don’t want to fucking be here, why would I come by to spend time with you if your going to not even be secretive about what you do? That’s it I’m fucking leaving.”

He had nothing to say.

As I walked to my brothers’ other friend’s house in a rage, I cried, it would be the second to last time you would ever find me crying.

It’s too bad it had to end like that. At this moment really felt that my childhood and my life in Alameda had reached a halt and all that used to be no longer mattered. It marked a turning point in my life, not only was it at this moment that moment that I reached this understanding, but it was around the time when I really defined myself and the person I am today.

The relationship that I had with my dad was never necessarily good or bad or close or distant. It was the same with my mom, our relationship fluctuated. It’s because of this that I have learned to live for and by myself, and that you can’t be reliant on people.

It was finally the fourth of July, a fairly normal day until dark, unless you’re into the parades and the block parties with giant spit roast’s and red, white, and blue confetti.

That used to be me, that typical block party is one you would find my adventurous younger self at, running around with all my best friends trying to replicate the friendship and adventure’s of the Goonies. At night my brother, mom, dad, and I would all attend my god brother’s family’s night party with an excessive amount of fireworks. All of the dad’s would drink lots of beer and light fireworks with the enflamed end of their cigars, and the mom’s would sit inside the living room talking about god knows what until they were dragged out by kids excitement of the fireworks display.

The Fourths of July’s got worse every year, a good representation of how our family was doing. It all lead to the divorce of my parents, and the divorce was nasty. The divorce brought along 5 years of mayhem, causing me to miss out on a lot of my childhood.

Regardless, the Fourth of July came and I was excited. I met up with Weedfuck, John, and a few other friends near Solano Avenue. We were prepared for the night except for the most important aspect, the alcohol. So, through an older brother connection we were able to obtain a 30 pack of Miller Genuine beer, which we promptly stuffed into two backpacks. Walking up Solano with stuffed backpacks was intense, so we decided that since everyone is going to drink, everyone would also share the load of carrying the backpacks. We turn off of Solano only to see three white boys dressed in baggy blue jeans and excessively large black hooded sweatshirts slowly pace through the entrance to the school. We exchange looks and laugh for a little bit because we know exactly who they must be. The sun starts to set as were walking into the school and I’m getting increasingly eager to start off the night. As we reach the northeastern sector of Thousand Oaks Elementary we see the same three guys we saw when we were turning off Solano.

“Frank bruh, why the fuck is you here bruh” he asked

“I mean I do live like a block away, why wouldn’t I come here” I replied

(Ignoring my reply) “Bruh, what is in your backpack? I know you got some beer or some type of drank in there bruh”

“Let me get some beer, FRANK” one of them says in the back round.

“Um, no” I reply

As I’m responding to the back round’s request the first guy I was talking to whips out an air-soft BB gun pistol.

“Bitch, give me some beer! Bruh, I’m strapped out here. Any motherfucker who wants it, I’ll murk any *****.”

I ignored him and looked at my friends who were laughing, some hysterically and some subtly. One of my friends Nico who is black (And very annoyed) whispered into my ear.

“Dude these fools are some fake ass losers, lets get out of here.”

We left only to come back an hour later to meet up with the bulk of our friends. We sat down the same spot we were at before.

“Alright, so a 30 pack on 5 heads is 6 beers per person, so…yea” I said

We decided the best way to use the beers was to shotgun the first three, and sip on the last three for the rest of the night, it didn’t exactly end as we planned. We drank all the beers quicker than planned, somehow got our hands on a bottle of liquor, and became incredibly intoxicated.

My body was numb, my head was spinning, and my words were leaking. I try to have an intellectual conversation, wait no it definitely was not an intellectual conversation. I was arguing with Geoff Mahley about our body-boxing match probably 45 minutes earlier.

“Dude, hear me out. I’m not going to lie, you would win in a boxing fight” I slur

“Yea” Geoff acknowledges

“But in a real fight, I would wrestle you to the ground and whoop your ass” I slur

“WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING ME.” he disagrees

At the same time we’re arguing I’m watching the majority of the group play with the fireworks. They started off by lighting bottle rockets either off their hands or off of anything they drunkenly deem clever. They then move on to the large fountain fireworks that shoot up a bright platinum flame. They light two at the same time. The second they ignite I watch my friend Julian out the corner of my eye sprint and jump over the fountains. The rest of the guys watch in awe as he does this and decide that they should do the same. As Geoff rants about the better fighter he is I watch from the darkness of the playground as my friends from both directions run and jump over the fireworks as if they were taking terns on a slip-n-slide.

While observing this, I watch Weedfuck and my friend Ben run at the same time at each other from opposite direction. They must have been too drunk and blinded by the glare of the firework because they collided directly above the firework display. Weedfuck looked as if he had ran into a concrete wall except the fact that his feet were carried into the air by momentum. His face had hit Ben’s shoulder at full speed (Weedfuck was around 8 inches shorter than Ben) and his body came to a halt, with him lying face-first on the asphalt. At first only me and Ben realized what had happened and we both ran to his aid. I sprinted to him, turned his body around and Ben and I dragged him away from the scene and into the light. When I initially got to him and was able to turn him around and get a look into his face I was afraid and in udder shock, I thought Weedfuck had died. His body was entirely limp and his eyes were closed and I was in shock thinking he had broken his neck. I remember thinking the same thing when I was told that my dad wasn’t going to make it.

“No, this cannot happen, no, no, no, no” I heard the back of my head saying in shock.

Using my lifeguard training that I had been learning the last couple months I check his pulse. A huge sigh of relief swept through my body as if my heart had skipped a beat, I checked the carotid artery in his neck and he had a pulse.

“He has a pulse!” I said

All of my friends except for Ben erupted in laughter. They thought I was being a stupid drunk person who was overreacting.

“Shut up!” Ben yells

The second he shouted everybody became silent, finally taking in the situation for what it really was. Everyone crowded around and became concerned for Weedfuck.

“Wha-, where am I?” Weedfuck calmly said as if he just woke up from sleeping.

“Dude, you were knocked the fuck out man” Geoff promptly responded

We helped up Weedfuck and everyone started telling Weedfuck what they thought had happened as if it were funny, Weedfuck was still delusional at that moment and probably wasn’t listening to them. He turned to John and said

“Dude what the fuck happened?”

“You and Ben collided and Frank came and saved you. Oh yea and Ben helped you too.” John replied

Weedfuck then turned to me and said

“Dude thanks for helping me, I don’t remember anything. You all right?”

He saw I was still in a little bit of aftershock and how I was sweating profusely.

“Yea man, I thought you were dead….” I said while whipping the sweat off my forehead

“Oh fuck, I’m sorry man” he calmly said and gave me a pat on the back

Weedfuck ended up walking home after that, and we realized that he had just gone through a concussion. It was on my own way home that I came to realize how lucky I am to have this group of friends. I never had any friends in Berkeley since I moved here in the third grade, that and the combination of mayhem in my life caused me to really miss out on a lot of my childhood and middle school year experiences. It made me realize how happy I am now that my life had leveled off for the first time since I was 8 years old. I feel so reluctant to have this support group and to finally not have to worry about how everybody in my life has made me feel, and it really has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.